Palliative care spiritual care competency scale: Turkish validity and reliability study

Purpose: The purpose of this methodological and descriptive study was to conduct a Turkish validity and reliability study of the Palliative Care Spiritual Care Competency Scale and to determine the palliative care spiritual care competencies of nurses. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted between 10/03/2021-04/01/2023 in Ondokuz Mayıs University Health Application and Research Centre Hospital. In this study, a nested mixed design was used in which quantitative and qualitative research methods were used together. The quantitative research sample consisted of 354 nurses and the qualitative research sample consisted of 17 nurses. Quantitative data were collected using the Nurse Descriptive Information Form and the Spiritual Competence in Palliative Care Scale, and qualitative data were collected using a semi-structured interview form. The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) were used to report qualitative research data. SPSS 28 and IBM SPSS Amos 21.0 programs were used to analyze quantitative data, and MAXQDA 22 was used to analyze qualitative data. Findings: The content validity index of the Spiritual Care Palliative Care Scale was reported to be 0.98 according to expert opinion. As a result of the confirmatory factor analysis, some items were removed from the scale, and the scale was finalized with 14 items and 3 subdimensions. In the confirmatory factor analysis, the following values were obtained for the goodness of fit of the scale: χ²/sd: 3.125; GFI: 0.915; AGFI: 0.875; IFI: 0.926; TLI: 0.905; CFI: 0.925; RMSEA: 0.078; SRMR: 0.054. The reliability of the scale over time was assessed using the test-retest method, and it was found that the agreement between responses was very good (ICC: 0.981; p<0.001). The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was 0.894, and the Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients of the scale sub-dimensions ranged from 0.783 to 0.850. Two themes emerged from the analysis of the qualitative data: Palliative care and spiritual care. The palliative care theme consisted of four subthemes: Role of the caregiver, professional competence, difficulties related to care, and outcomes of care; the theme of spiritual care consisted of four subthemes: Individual's care needs, facilitators of care, barriers to care, and outcomes of care. Conclusion: This study demonstrated the Palliative Care Spiritual Care Competence Scale to be a valid and reliable scale in Turkish society. Keywords: Nursing, Palliative Care, Spiritual Care, Competence